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Nita M. Ambani and her daughter Isha Ambani Piramal have recently taken India’s art scene by storm with the opening of the multi-disciplinary Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre in Mumbai in March 2023. “Bringing this Cultural Centre to life has been a sacred journey,” Nita said in a statement at the time. “We were keen to create a space for both promoting and celebrating our artistic and cultural heritage in cinema and music, in dance and drama, in literature and folklore, in arts and crafts and in science and spirituality. A space where we showcase the best of India to the world and welcome the best of the world to India.”

NMACC’s opening was attended by major figures in art (artists Jeff Koons, Mickalene Thomas, Alex Israel, and LACMA director Michael Govan), entertainment (Zendaya, Tom Holland, Priyanka Chopra, Penelope Cruz, and Nick Jonas), and fashion (Gigi Hadid, Christian Louboutin, Prabal Gurung, and Law Roach). The space was inaugurated by two exhibitions: “India in Fashion,” curated by fashion editor Hamish Bowles, and “Sangam/Confluence,” which featured the work of contemporary Indian and international artists and was curated by dealer Jeffrey Deitch and poet and critic Ranjit Hoskote. In July 2023, NMACC opened an exhibition titled “RUN AS SLOW AS YOU CAN” dedicated to TOILETPAPER, the magazine founded by artists Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari.

In 2019, Nita Ambani was named an honorary trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which she has supported since 2016. Among the major exhibitions she has helped fund there have been solo shows for Nasreen Mohamedi (in 2016) and Mrinalini Mukherjee (2019), as well as “Modernism on the Ganges: Raghubir Singh Photographs” (2017) and “Tree & Serpent: Early Buddhist Art in India, 200 BCE–400 CE” (2023).

She is also the chairperson of the Reliance Foundation, which was founded in 2010 and focuses on “aiding India’s sustainable development” in various sectors, including health, education, urban renewal, and arts and culture. Additionally, she founded the Dhirubhai Ambani International School and was elected as a member of the International Olympic Committee in 2016, becoming the first Indian women to join the IOC’s membership.

Reliance Foundation is a nonprofit affiliated with Reliance Industries Limited, a Fortune 500 company that is one of India’s largest private corporations. Founded by her father-in-law Dhirubhai Ambani in 1955, the multinational conglomerate began as a textiles company and now has interests in energy, retail, and digital services, among others; her husband, Mukesh Ambani, currently serves as the company’s chairman and managing director. (As of October 2023, Forbes estimated Ambani’s net worth to be around $91.4 billion.) The company also wholly owns the professional cricket team Mumbai Indians, which has won the Indian Premier League five times.